John J. Sloan, III (1956 - ) was born and raised in Detroit where he attended elementary and high school. After graduation, he worked for nearly three years as a mechanic in a "mom and pop" gas station before matriculating at Eastern Michigan University where he earned a BS (1980) and an MS (1982) in criminal justice and sociology. After spending a year in law school, he pursued doctoral studies in sociology at Purdue University where he earned the Ph.D. in 1987 and then remained for a year as a visiting assistant professor. In 1988, he joined the criminal justice faculty at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and moved through the faculty ranks to professor. In 2004, he was named Chairman of the Department of Justice Sciences at UAB and continues in that position. He also co-founded (in 2012) the Center for Information Assurance and Joint Forensics Research, one of 28 University Wide Interdisciplinary Research Centers at UAB, and was named Director in July of 2014.